About 315 miles · New York (NJ border at the mouth) · source Lake Tear of the Clouds · mouth New York Harbor
Hudson River map
The Hudson runs about 315 miles from Lake Tear of the Clouds on Mount Marcy to Upper New York Bay, entirely within New York except for the last 20 miles, where it separates New York from New Jersey.
Where the Hudson is
The Hudson rises at Lake Tear of the Clouds, a pond at about 4,300 ft on the side of Mount Marcy, the highest peak in New York. It leaves the Adirondacks near Glens Falls, turns south at the Mohawk confluence above Troy, and runs almost due south through the Hudson Valley to New York Harbor. From the New Jersey line near the Tappan Zee to the Battery, about 20 miles, it is the border between New York and New Jersey. Every other mile is inside New York.
Key measurements
- Length: about 315 miles.
- Tidal for 153 miles, from the ocean to the Federal Dam at Troy; the lower Hudson is technically an estuary, and salt water reaches Poughkeepsie in dry summers.
- Main tributary: the Mohawk, which joins at Cohoes. The Erie Canal (opened 1825) follows the Mohawk west from the Hudson to Lake Erie at Buffalo.
- The Palisades, a basalt cliff up to about 500 ft high, line the New Jersey bank opposite Manhattan and the Bronx.
- Crossings include the George Washington Bridge (1931), the Tappan Zee (rebuilt 2017 as the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge), Bear Mountain Bridge and the Poughkeepsie rail bridge, now the Walkway Over the Hudson.
Cities on the river
New York City at the mouth; Manhattan's west shore is the river's east bank. Upstream: Yonkers, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Hudson, and the capital, Albany, 145 miles from the sea and still a port. Troy, at the head of tide, is where the Champlain Canal branches north. West Point, the US Military Academy, sits on a bend in the Hudson Highlands where a chain was stretched across the river in 1778.
How the river shaped the map
Henry Hudson sailed up the river for the Dutch in 1609, which is why New York began as New Netherland and Albany as Fort Orange. The Hudson–Mohawk gap is the only low-level route through the Appalachians between Georgia and the St. Lawrence; the Erie Canal exploited it and made New York City the country's main port. The state's eastern border with Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut runs roughly parallel to the river about 20 miles east. The New York–New Jersey line in the lower river was set at the middle of the channel by an 1834 compact, which is also why Ellis Island is mostly in New Jersey.
Related maps
- Appalachian Mountains — the Adirondacks and Catskills flank the valley.
- Great Lakes — connected to the Hudson by the Erie Canal.
- US coastlines — New York Harbor.
- Middle Atlantic states · Longest US rivers · All geography maps.